Silence in the Coral Sea. The artist derives much of his inspiration from everyday objects such as mailboxes, aircraft structures, wings and propellers, heavy machinery and architectural works. These objects become conceptual elements, which he transforms first into drawings.
Silence in the Coral Sea
Riverside Art Museum is proud to present Silence in the Coral Sea, work by
Dean DeCocker, in the Bobbie Powell Gallery.
Dean DeCocker's work is part of a continuing series. From the first
winged-shaped structures to the current work, he has been exploring his
interest in formal elements by transforming flat, two-dimensional surfaces
into three-dimensional objects. DeCocker derives much of his inspiration
from everyday objects such as mailboxes, aircraft structures, wings and
propellers, heavy machinery and architectural works. These objects become
conceptual elements, which he transforms first into drawings. Then, via
techniques of aircraft construction, DeCocker fabricates objects of inner
structures and outer coverings that create volumetric enclosures.
"Meta-Photography" brings together five California artists working with new
photographic techniques. They incorporate more traditional practices
(shooting pictures with a regular  even non-digital  camera, hand-coloring
sections of the image, writing) or what might be called more traditional
experiments (photograms produced in the darkroom, collage, photocopy) into
their digitally driven manipulations. But they all push the formal, not to
mention technical, envelope that currently contains what we think of as
"photography." Using her computer¹s mouse, Suzanne Adelman [Los
Angeles]"draws" parts of landscape photographs into other such images.
Exposing photo-sensitive paper to controlled light, in a method going back
to Man Ray, Diane Althoff [Oakland] achieves painterly effects with the
C-print¹s rainbow palette. Straddling photography, drawing, collage and
printmaking, Susan Smith Evans [Palm Desert] sets in motion a dreamlike
world of shadowy flora and fauna. August Highland [San Diego] is a "visual
poet" whose typographic, and purely graphic, investigations have jumped off
the computer screen and onto photographic paper. In her wall constructions
and free-hanging silk banners Amy Todd [San Francisco] fuses documentary
photographs of her family and related images into fluid narratives of memory
and loss.
"Meta-Photography" is organized by Peter Frank, Senior Curator at the
Riverside Art Museum. Born in New York, where he studied and began his
career as an art critic and independent curator, Frank has written many
articles, catalogue essays, and books (his latest a monograph on the painter
Robert De Niro, Sr. Â father of the actor) and has organized exhibitions for
such museums and organizations as Germany¹s Documenta and New York¹s Solomon
R. Guggenheim Museum. He began visiting California in a professional
capacity three decades ago, and relocated here a dozen years later. He
currently serves as art critic for Angeleno magazine and the L. A. Weekly.
About his appointment to his Riverside Art Museum post, Frank says,
"Riverside, and the whole inland region of southern California, is poised on
the brink of a demographic and cultural explosion. This is the spirit, the
adventure in the natural and social frontiers, I associate with and love
about California life. Our art reflects this expansivity, restlessness, and
human passion; our audiences know and seek this. It is exciting to work in
Riverside at this time, at a newly energized little museum, for what
promises to be a smart, hungry, and growing public  local, regional, and
ultimately national."
The Riverside Art Museum, located in historic downtown Riverside, occupies a
beautiful historic building designed and built by Hearst Castle architect
Julia Morgan. The Mission of the Riverside Art Museum is to serve the
various communities and diverse populations of the Inland Empire by
providing visual art of the finest quality.
Reception: Thursday, June 9, 6-8
Riverside Art Museum
3425 Mission Inn Avenue - Riverside, CA
Museum Hours: Monday through Saturday, 10:00 pm to 4:00 pm, Thursday until 8 pm